Critical Environments / More-Than-Human Environments

The Critical Environments Lecture Series explores the agency of design as a mode of investigation and reflexive transformation of the ever-changing interrelations between natural processes, societal practices, and (geo)political frameworks.

Through the framing of Critical Environments, this lecture series aims to emphasize both the urgency around critical environmental conditions due to the multicrises of climate change and social and ecological inequality, as well as the need for a critical approach to understanding and addressing them. The series brings together perspectives from urban and landscape theory, critical media, and design.

The second event, Critical Environments / More-than-human Environments, sheds light to the variegated techno-natural ecologies of urbanization and is combined with the launch of the 33^rd volume of the Footprint journal, on Situating More-than-Human Ecologies of Extended Urbanization; the series culminates in a one day, end of the year symposium on Critical Environments and the Transitional Territories Graduation Studio Exhibition.

Critical Environments / More than Human Environments

Footprint 33 Launch: Situating More-Than-Human Ecologies of Extended Urbanisation, with Nikos Katsikis and Víctor Muñoz Sanz

Lectures by:

Sonia Levy, Royal College of Art, London

Sonia Levy is an artist whose work focuses on Western expansionist and extractivist logics, exploring critical engagement with more-than-human worlds. She uses filmmaking for site-based inquiries and interdisciplinary collaborations. Levy was the 2023-24 European Marine Board artist-in-residence and participated in the 2022 S+T+ARTS4Water residency in Venice. In 2021, she was commissioned at Radar Loughborough and Aarhus University’s Ecological Globalization Research Group. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Museo Thyssen, ICA London, and Baltic Gateshead, and published by MIT Press and Thames & Hudson. Levy is an Associate Lecturer in Media Studies at the Royal College of Art and a recent UN Ocean Decade Steering Committee member.

Georgina Voss, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London

Georgina Voss (she/her) is an artist, writer, and educator. She is author of ‘Systems Ultra: Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World’ (Verso 2024). Her work explores the presence and politics of large-scale technologies and heavy industry through performance, installation, and long-term research projects. Georgina has exhibited and performed at transmediale, Auto Italia South East, TAC Eindhoven, STUK, V&A London, Brighton Digital Festival, Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin, Tate Modern, and London Digital Festival; and has published in The Guardian, Harvard Design Magazine, The Atlantic, and more. She co-founded and led the creative studios Strange Telemetry, and Supra Systems Studio (University of the Arts London), and holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy from SPRU, University of Sussex.

The 2024 Critical Environments Public Program is curated by Nikos Katsikis, Elena Longhin, Víctor Muñoz Sanz, and Taneha Bacchin.